The Super Mario Bros. Movie Van

Made By:

Jakks Pacific

Scale:

N/A

MSRP:

US$24.99

52

Overview:
Packaging (Design):	7/10
Packaging (Durability):	10/10
Casting (Body):	9/10
Casting (Interior):	N/A
Casting (Chassis):	7/10
Casting (Engine):	N/A
Paint (Exterior):	N/A
Paint (Interior):	N/A
Paint (Trim/Graphics):	10/10
Overall Panel Fit:	9/10
Total Score:	8.7/10

 

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Super Mario Bros. Movie Van (Review)
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Background

A Brooklyn plumber named Mario travels through the Mushroom Kingdom with a princess named Peach and an anthropomorphic mushroom named Toad to find Mario's brother, Luigi, and to save the world from a ruthless fire-breathing Koopa named Bowser.

Packaging

The Van Playset is in a relatively small box, measuring just 7" (17.5cm) square and 3¾" (9.5cm) deep. It's bright and colorful, with the movie render of Mario, the title, and logos for Jakks, Nintendo, and Illumination scattered across a black background. Unfortunately, the only window is a tiny one near the top right corner where you can see the included 1¼" (3cm) tall Mario figure. The van itself is represented only in photos: a large photo on the front above a smaller photo of it in playset mode, then a larger playset photo on the back. Cosells for the other products in the line are beneath the photo on the back, and the legal-ese is on the bottom panel. Open the box, and the van is held in a folded and taped cardboard sleeve. It's a surprising amout of work to get it free, considering how little space there is between the box and the van. Jakks apparently wanted to waste no more packaging than necessary. The Mario figure is in a small blister tray, and is also trickier to get out than you'd expect - take care when you do so, because it's very easy to pop parts off of him as you try to get him free.

Casting/Paint

All closed up, the van is a simple but neat little replica. The bulk of the van is made of orangey-yellow ABS, with black wheels. The casting is clean and sharp, with fine lines for the suggested panel breaks (hood, doors, fuel fill, character lines, etc.) and minimal gaps between the separate panels. There's a lot of nice detail work as well, including the grille, wipers, door handles and locks, lights, and mirrors. Everything is cast in place rather than as separate parts, but is smartly done to work with the manufacturing process and as a result looks very nice. Due to the nature of the toy there is no interior or engine, and the chassis is nothing more than the suggestion of an exhaust pipe.

The paint work follows the "simple but smart" precedent set by the casting. The bumpers, grille, side rub strips, wipers, mirrors, door handles, and taillights are black; the "glass" details including the headlights, windows, and mirror faces are light blue; the front and side marker lights are orange; the middle lenses on the taillights are red; and the grille emblem and wheels are silver. There is a problem where the cast and painted edges of the grille don't match up, with the paint stopping about two bars from the top of the grille, but the edge is sharp enough to suggest this was a problem with planning, not execution. The windows, lights, bumpers, etc. all fit exactly as you'd hope, further suggesting that hte grille was simply a miscommunication at the factory. Stickers are used for the license plates and side boards. The plates read "M4R10 BR0" on a slightly older "Empire Gold" New York design, and while the front one is a standard size and shape the rear one has been vertically compressed to fit below the cast-in plate retainer screws. The side boards are sized to fit perfectly inside the recessed panels on thesides of the van, eliminating a visible line at hte edge of the sticker. They both advertise "Super Mario Bros." in the old game font with "Plumbing" in red underneath. The left side panel has Mario to the left of the text, mid-jump and holding a plunger while giving a thumbs up, while the right side has Luigi in the same pose. The printing on all of these s sharp and clear, with excellent opacity (especially noteworthy considering hte white text over yellow plastic).

Features/Accessories

The whole point of this set is that hte van unfolds into a playset for the included Mario figure. Hinge down the left side, rear, and front; lift the roof along the right roof rail; and lift up the hinged parts to finish the scene. What was the front of the van is now a wasteland with cracked gray earth, bricks, and a river of lava. This continues onto the first part of the chassis, where it meets a vertical wall of dark plastic with more spooky details. The left side of the van is now a bright grassland, with a green base and seven spotted mushrooms on thre hinged panels. The rest of the chassis and rear panel have a bright purple base with speed lines and lightning effects cast into the surface. Two green pipes are attached to the surface: the forward one is the top part of a "T" fitting, while the rearward one is on a hinged mount and partially surrounded by a white cloud. The wall separating this area from the wasteland has a large sticker showing a Mordor-esque scene in the distance and a roughly molded black pipe piercing the wall, while the right side of the van has a sticker continuing the purple motif with clouds and ethereal light. What used to be the roof of the van is a simple blue-gray brick wall behind a small gray pipe attached to a green straight pipe that lines up directly with the "T" fitting on the floor. A hinged panel continues the blue-gray pattern while extending the wall between the floor and wasteland. Everything in here is cleanly cast and sharply painted, making for a fun little world for Mario to explore. The figure is equally well done, with excellent paint and even some articulation with ball joints at the head and shoulders.

Accuracy

The overall shape of the van is a near-perfect match to what we've seen, looking essentially like a chibified Transit Van. The color is also a decent match, but much cleaner than the CG model without any of the rust or mud splatters, dark wheels, or other wear & tear associated with New York-based commercial vehicles. Finally, the roof lacks the ladder and storage tube. All considered, this could be considered the way the van looked when Mario and Luigi first bought it and the movie version is after a few years of service. It measures approximately 6" (15cm) long, 3¼" (8.5cm) wide, and 3½" (9cm) tall. Scale is impossible to determine without a real world analog or some human-scaled detail like seats, though the front (non-deformed) license plate measures 12mm x 6mm, putting it right around 1/25 scale.

Overall

I bought this for the van alone, and feel I got a good deal with that. The play scene and Mario figure just add to that, and in short Jakks has created a fun and well-detailed piece that surpasses any expectations I had for it. It's fantastic work all around, and very highly recommended.